Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of planting panic. The rains are coming, we’re already behind, and this year we decided to drag an abandoned Ford 2000 industrial out of the weeds and see if it’ll not only run, but actually put the beans in. I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t know crap about these tractors, so I brought Farmer Ezra along—because this one’s got the Select-O-Speed, which is basically an early powershift with bands and planetaries. They’re either awesome… or they turn into very expensive yard art. We start with the basics: spark check (surprise, it had spark), fuel system drama, no air filter element (just a screen—would keep the birds out), and then the real culprit: ignition timing and plug wires being wrong because the distributor had been moved. Once we got number one sorted the old-school way (thumb over the plug hole, find TDC), fixed the cap fitment, and moved things a cog, she finally lit. From there it’s all about making it field-worthy: hook the governor/throttle linkage back up, chase power steering leaks, and—most importantly—service the Select-O-Speed fluid that looked like a chocolate milk jug full of regret. We flush it, re-plumb hydraulics to run a cylinder out back, ditch the loader arms to lose weight, and get this little go-kart tractor ready to go turn dirt and plant 5 acres.